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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

i^H|t. (Sp^rig^t !|a.-/- - 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



THE TEACHER 



AS HE SHOULD BE 



ANT ADDRESS DELIVERED, JULY 8, 1891, BEFORE THE NEW 

YORK STATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION ; AND, WITH 

SLIGHT CHANGES, JULY 21, 1891, BEFORE 

THE CHAUTAUQUA ASSEMBLY, BY 



Editor of flie Scltool Bulletin 




SYRACUSE, N. Y. : 

C. W. ]',ARDEEN, PUBLISHER 

1801 



-Tim SCHOOL nrLLETiy prnLiCATioN's.- 



' Books of Eeference. 

The distinctive feature of a scholar's library is the large proportion of 
its boolis of reference. Education does not fill up a man with information : 
it teaches him where to go for information when he wants it, and gives him 
the habit of going for it when he wants it. This requires that he have at 
liand the booliS he will most frequently refer to. After the dictionary, 
among those most impoi-tant to the teacher are the following : 

1. The Cychpcedia of Udticaiion. Cloth, 8vo, pp. 569, $3.75. 

This compares with other books on education as the dictionary com- 
pares with the spelling-book. The latter is useful, but the former is indis- 
pensable. In the latter you may find the word you want ; in the former you 
are sure to This is a day when teachers must be well informed. Here arc 
some of the topics you may be asked questions about, or may want to in- 
form yourself about ". Festalozzi, Comenius, Object Teacliing, Aschani^ Fi^oehel, 
Thomas Arnold, The Kindergar'ten, Horace Mann, School Management, Indus- 
t7'iat, Education, School Economy, German Schools, Sclwol Law, Slojd, etc., etc. 
You may be sure you can find all of these topics and scores more like them 
in this book. It is the Pedagogical Unabridged Dictionary, and every ener- 
getic teacher must have it. 

2. The Ready Reference Law Manual. By E. E. Knott. Cloth, 8vo, 
pp. 331, $2.00. 

It is not meant fob Lawtees, but for those who are not lawyers. It 
gives clearly and simply the provisions of the law that concern every man, 
and of which it. sometimes costs a man a good deal to be ignorant. Capital- 
ists often make their sons regularly admitted lawyers, not witli any view to 
practice, but that they may be able to protect the property they will inherit. 
Even the man of little property, or dependent on a salary from which he 
can not save much, should know the most important features of the law. 
The little needs protection even more than the much, for loss is more dis- 
astrous. 

3. Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. By Peter Mark Roget. 
Cloth, 13mo, pp. 710, $3.00. 

For acquiring an extensive vocabulary that will enable one to u^Qjust 
the right word in the right place, this work has no equal. For illustration 
of its usefulness, see Bardeen's Complete Bhetorlc, pp. 401-403. 

l^. Yerhal Pitfalls : a manual of 1500 words commonly Misused. By 
C. W. Bardeen. Cloth, 16mo, pp. 223. 75 cts. 

" In these days of slang and careless speech there is great use for a book 
of this kind, and teachers should have a copy lying on their desk in the 
school-room, ready for constant reference. The writer for the press, public 
speakers, and all people generally will find this little manual exceedingly 
valuable." — No. Carolina Teacher. 

" I am very much pleased with it, and shall have it at once placed on 
our library list and made one of the requisites for the teacher's desk."— 
Siqjt. C, T. Meredith, Ventura Co., Cal. 

C. W. BAKDEEN, Piiblislier, Syracuse, N. Y. 



THE TEACHER 



AS HE SHOULD BE 



AN ADDRESS DELIVERED, JULY 8, 1891, BEFORE THE 2>rEW 

YORK STATE TEACHERS' ASSOCIATION ; AND, WITH 

SLIGHT CHANGES, JULY 21, 1891, BEFORE 

THE CHAUTAUQUA ASSEMBLY, BY 



Editor of the School Bulletin 




/C 



SYRACUSE, N. Y. : 

C. W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER 

1891 



1^ n^ 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR. 



Teaching as a Business fm' 3fen. An Address before the National Educational Associa- 
tion, July 17, 1885. 8vo, pp. 20, 25 cents. 

The Teacher's Commercial Valiie. An Address before the New York State Teachers' 
Association, July 9, 1885. 8vo, pp. 20, 25 cents. 

" Organization" and'' Srjstem'''' vs. Originality in the Teacher. An Address before the 
National Educational Association, July, 11, 1890, by Henry Saein, State Superintendent of 
Iowa, with opening of' the Discussion by C. W. Baedeen. Svo, pp. 9, 15 cents. 

Some Facts about our Public Schools. A Plea for the Township System. An address be- 
fore the New York State Association of School Commissioners and City Superintendents, 
Feb. 20, 1878. 8yo, pp. 32, 25 cents. 

The Present Status of the Township System. An Address before the ;New York State 
Teachers' Association, July 10, 1878. {Not printed.) 

The Present Status of the Tmvnship System. An Address before the New York State 
Association of School Commissioners and City Superintendents, Jan. 9, 1889. With an ap- 
pendix containing the bill introduced in the Legislature of 1890. 8vo, pp. 60, 40 cents. 

The Tax-Payer and the Township System. An Address before the New Jersey State 
Teachers' Association, July 2, 1891. 8vo, pp. 15. 25 cts. 

Effect of the College Preparatory High School upon Attendance and Scholarship in the Lower 
Ch-ades. An Address before the Department of Secondary Education of the National Edu- 
cational Association, July 9, 1890. 8vo, pp. 5, 15 cents. 

Educational Journalism. An Address before the New York State Teachers' Associa- 
tion, July 6, 1881. 8vo, pp. 30. {Now out of print.) 



THE TEACHER AS HE SHOULD BE. 



My earliest ideas of art are connected with a picture in the 
advertising columns of the weekly newspaper. It represented 
two men ; one lean and lank and decrepit, walking about to 
save funeral expenses, and labelled "Before taking; " the other 
blooming with full vigor of manhood, and labelled "After 
taking". Dr. Andrews has shown you the teacher "before tak- 
ing"; I am to show you the other one. 

A careful compilation of the characteristics ascribed to the 
Ideal Teacher in previous addresses upon the subject shows that 
he must be affable, benignant, courteous, decorous, exact, fervent, 
genteel, humorous, immaculate, judicious, keen, lenient, modest, 
neat, orderly, prompt, quiet, robust, scholarly, tranquil, ubiquit- 
ous, vigilant, wary, 'xemplary, youthful, and zealous. My sub- 
ject, therefore, naturally divides itself into twenty-seven heads : 
the twenty-six which I have mentioned — and which I will omit; 
and a twenty-seventh, which is that he should be a Man. 

For after all, that is about all there is of it. A person may 
have every one of these twenty-six characteristics and yet be a poor 
stick of a teacher. He may lack them all, and yet be the one 
great force for good in the lives of his pupils. During the war 
when things looked dark and Artemus Ward was discouraged, 
he spoke a little piece on specialties. He said John Adams's 
specialty was so-and-so, and Thomas Jefferson's was this, and 
Alexander Hamilton's was that; but George Washington's 
specialty consisted in not having any body at the present day 
resemble him to any alarming degree. It is this quality of pre- 



4 

eminence, — of a personality that dominates and compels recog- 
nition, that marks the ideal teacher. He never deserves the 
name unless his pupils say of him reverently, 

"He was a man, take him for all in all, 
I shall not look upon his like again." 

Suppose we apply the inductive method. Let us select four 
of the recognized great teachers of recent generations, and see 
what qualities they had in common. 

There will be no dispute as to whose name should head the 
list. With Thomas Arnold let us associate Edward Thring, 
Emma Willard, and Mark Hopkins. The eminence of these 
teachers is established. I suppose if there were a vacant posi- 
tion on the institute corps Judge Draper would consider any 
one of them an eligible candidate. Language can go no farther. 

But when we apply to them our twenty-six adjectives we are 
perplexed. For one thing, none of them were great scholars. 
Edward Thring and Mark Hopkins were not even bookish in 
their tastes, but read marvellously little for men of their station. 
As for professional reading, they never thought of it. Not one 
of the four could pass a teachers'-class examination in methods, 
as laid down in DeGraflF's School Room Guide. 

Time will not permit me to analyze at length the characters 
of all of them, but suppose we look for a moment at one who 
ranks well with the rest, and whose name is just now much men- 
tioned in a neighboring city. We shall find that Emma Willard 
lacked a great many things that school commissioners deem 
essential to a first-grade certificate. 

A teacher ought to have a "professional spirit ". Had Mrs. 
Willard ? No : when she began teaching her sole object was to 
assist her husband in his pecuniary affairs, and she did not do a 
great amount of personal teaching after she got money enough 
together to hire others to do it. 



A teacher should be absorbed in her work, most critics tell 
us. Was Mrs. Willard .? She writes from Middlebury : "I go 
to school generally before nine and stay till one; come home, 
snatch my dinner, go again, and stay till almost sundown ; come 
home and dress in a great hurry to go abroad; get home about 
ten, fatigued enough to go to bed, and lie till seven the next 
morning, with hardly time enough to mend my stockings." 

A teacher ought to be free from vanity. Was Emma Willard .'' 
No, she was one of the vainest women that ever lived. She 
went to a museum in Paris. In her own words : " I told them 
I was connected with an establishment for female education, or 
in other words was a school-mistress, and I dare say I gave them 
to understand, though I cannot tell in exactly what form of 
words, that I thought I was a pretty good one, too." 

Gen. Lafayette had enjoyed his reception by her young ladies, 
and paid her much attention in France. To her he was there- 
fore not only the great man of Europe, but in her own words 
"the acknowledged father of my country," — which shows what 
an oversight it was on Washington'spart to die before he visited 
Troy. She made one of Gen. Lafayette's party to the opera, and 
as they went out the crowd made respectful passage for them. 
"I can scarcely describe my own feelings," she writes; "I was 
with him whom from my infancy I had venerated as the best of 
men ; whom for a long period of my life I had never hoped even 
to see in this world. Now I read with him his noble history in 
the melting eyes of his ardent nation. And I saw that he was 
regarded as he is, the father of France — aye, and of America too. 
America ! my own loved land ! It was for her sake I was thus 
honored, and it was for me to feel her share in the common 
emotion. My spirit seemed to dilate, and for a moment, self- 
personified as the genius of my country, I enjoyed to the full 
his triumph, who is at once her father, and her adopted son." 



6 

She used to write letters to the great men of the time, — Web- 
ster, Clay, Benton, the Presidents, and so on, — whether she knew 
them or not, and whether the letters were answered or not. She 
began a letter to Abraham Lincoln thus: "Dear Sir : Presuming 
I am known to you as a writer of my country's history, and 
having just heard that the great cares which weigh upon you 
begin to tell upon your physical health, I determined to write 
to you my high approval of your general course and leading 
measures." 

We regret that, in the language of her biographer, he v/as too 
preoccupied to reply. 

She was equally unlimited in her choice of topics. A gentle- 
man was asked what was the specialty of a certain man of scien- 
tific pretensions. "In these days" was the careful reply, "a 
scientist's specialty must be very narrow. It must be not all 
natural history, but zoology; not all zoology but insects; not 
all insects, but diptera ; not all diptera, but the flea, and so on. 
Now Mr. Blank's specialty is omniscience." 

So it might be said of Mrs. Willard that her specialty was 
omniscience. She knew a good deal about female education 
but she was just as ready to pronounce authoritative opinions 
upon any other subject. During the war she published a pamphlet 
on the Negro, pointing out that God had made him black so 
that his place as servant in the family should be unnustakably 
settled, all jealous heart-burnings and vain expectations spared, 
and a permanent order in the household established. She strode 
into the medical field, and invented a theory of circulation and 
respiration that was solemnly endorsed in 1851 by this Associa- 
tion. Under this theory a consumptive in the last stages had 
only to throw open a window and inhale deep draughts of the 
winter air, and all would be well — a simpler cure than Dr. 
Koch's and perhaps no shorter-lived. 



7 

I could occupy all my time telling of the foolish things Emma 
Willard did in her long and busy life. So I could pick a hand- 
ful of pebbles from a fallow meadow, and show them to you as a 
specimen of the soil. Emma Willard could afford to do foolish 
things ; for she was a great woman, and in the light of her noble 
character and her inestimable services to her sex these defects 
sink into insignificance. 

I am a hero-worshipper. I want to die long before I cease to 
believe, I do not say in goodness and in greatness, but in good 
men and great men. It is the curse of this generation that in 
the same breadth we say of a scoundrel, " O well, I dare say the 
rest of us are just as bad if we were only found out " ; and of a 
noble champion of God's truth, " He knows on which side his 
bread is buttered". Coleridge said his Mephistopheles was to 
have made all things equally vain and of little worth by com- 
mingling the infinitely great with the infinitely little. Of all 
that an evil spirit denies, we lose most as we are pervaded by 
his denial of distinction in the motives of human action. 

But my hero-worship is not panegyric. If you tell me that 
Thomas Arnold had no faults, you do not raise my opinion of 
him, but you show me that you lack information and judgment. 
All men have faults, and great men are sure to have marked 
faults. It is a sign of a great man that he can afford to have 
faults, and of a clear mind to see the faults only in perspective. 

Let me illustrate. 

The great man in my own experience as a pupil, the only 
teacher out of the hundred I had who left in me a recognized 
uplifting of my whole nature through his personality, knew less 
about mathematics than I do about the next world; for I 
know that I know nothing about the next world, and he 
never found out that he knew nothing about algebra. I remem- 
ber vividly a typical recitation. The class had stumbled over 



8 

the proof that a'' = i. So he went to the board to help us out. 
Chalk in hand he began bravely: "rtO= ". A pause, a turn to 
the side of his shaggy locks : " =(^^ ". A further pause, and 
then below: "«"=: "; and then quickly: "=«c. So you see 
a^ = i. Next." A whisk of the eraser, and he slunk back to his 
seat and went on with the lesson. 

Now there is in combination every possible fault in a recita- 
tion. As an educated man he ought to have been able to dem- 
onstrate that ^0 = 1 anywhere and at any time. I could do it 
myself, though I haven't taught school in twenty years. 

Then if he was going to teach algebra at all, he ought to have 
prepared his lesson. He might at least have committed the 
demonstration to memory. 

Then if he didn't know it he ought to have acknowledged it, 
and not to have sneaked out of it by a transparent subterfuge. 

In fact if you as a young commissioner were to judge him by 
that recitation you wouldn't have granted him a third-grade cer- 
tificate. You would have told him that the quicker he got out 
of the school-room and into some legitimate business for which 
he had some adaptation, the better. And yet that man was head 
and shoulders the best teacher I ever had. He knew less than 
nothing about mathematics, but O what a Greek scholar he was ! 
His boys went down to Yale fully abreast in technicalities of 
Uncle Sam's Andover pets, and in critical appreciation way 
beyond them. It was an inspiration to recite to him in 
Homer. There we saw him at his best, for he loved the lan- 
guage and the lines. Unconsciously he lavished upon us there 
all the earnestness, the simplicity, the depth, and the richness 
of his character. No boy ever graduated under William Hutch- 
ison without a loftier ideal of what it was to be a man. 

We never thought he was without faults, but what did we 
eare for them ? His algebra recitations were ridiculous ; but 



9 

think what a glorious old fellow he must have been that he 
could every day go through such fatuous performances and not 
a boy in the room think less of him. 

Now understand me, I do not mean that a man is ever greater 
on account of his faults. Mr. Hutchison would have been a 
better teacher, and I should be to-day a better scholar if he had 
either mastered mathematics or refused to teach it. But that one 
weakness of his stood out against such a wealth of strength that 
it was simply funny to us from its incongruity. 

I want to emphasize this, for it is the underlying point of this 
address. Teachers are judged too much by characteristics, too 
little by character. 

You come to me for a teacher, and I say, "Well, here is a 
capital man in most ways, but he lacks tact." Like a flash you 
reply, "That settles it; tact is indispensable." 

Isit.^ That depends on the man. Thomas Arnold had no 
tact; Edward Thring abounded in the lack of it : so if all men 
had been of your mind England would have missed the two 
greatest teachers she ever knew. 

In fact specification of non-essentials is the rock upon which 
many a school-board splits. A committee come to me and say : 
"We want a principal, both normal and college graduate; not 
less than 25 or more than 30 years old; rather tall, and weighing 
from 150 to 175 pounds; married, with an agreeable wife and 
two or three children ; who has had experience in a school un- 
der the Regents, holds a State certificate by examination, and 
can show that in every school where he has taught he has 
increased the foreign attendance." 

" And what will you pay ? " I ask. 

" Well if he just suits us, we will give him seven hundred and 
fifty dollars." 

One is reminded of the dignified but seedy individual who 



10 

entered a cheap restaurant, took off his gloves, hung his hat and 
overcoat upon the hooks, dusted the chair, brushed the crumbs 
from the table-cloth, and then addressed the waiter as follows : 

"If you have just the right kind of oysters in just the right 
condition, please take half a pint of small ones (^not too small 
you know^, and strain the juice off them carefully, leaving just 
a little juice on them; put them in a pan which has been scoured 
and dried, and then add a little butter (good, pure butter^ and 
a little milk (^not New York milk, but real cow's milkj, and 
then place the pan over a coal-fire, being careful to keep the 
pan in motion so as not to let the oysters or milk burn; add a 
little juice if you choose, and then watch the pan closely so that 
the exact moment it comes to boil you can whip it off. At the 
same time have a deep dish warming near at hand, and when 
you see the first sign of boiling empty the pan into the dish. 
Do you think you can remember that ? " 

And the waiter, who had listened respectfully, called wearily 
down into the kitchen, "One stew ! " 

So the school board that goes so much into detail in prescrib- 
ing qualifications will find in the end that it has secured one 
stick. 

The worst of it is, trustees are often the most strenuous about 
the least important. A committee says : 

" We want an intermediate teacher, normal graduate ; between 
22 and 26 years old; rather imposing in height; dressing neatly 
but not showily, with preference for dark colors; at least four 
years' experience, the last half in graded schools ; who can play 
the organ for marching, has read occasional papers at county 
associations, and attends the Free-Will Baptist church. Salary 
seven dollars a week." 

" And if you can't get quite all these things ? " 

"Well she nms^ be a Free-Will Baptist." 



11 

You remember the perplexity of the boy who as he grew up 
was astonished to learn that our Saviour was born a Jew. He 
said he had always supposed God was a Presbyterian. 

It is most exasperating when these narrow critics pride them- 
selves on rejecting a teacher for some trivial defect. They have 
found that he is a noble christian man, of long and successful 
experience, and they cast him aside because in writing of pun- 
ishment he spells corporal with an e. Now it is a fault not to 
spell well ; so far as it goes it counts against a teacher, decidedly. 
But the woods are full of teachers 

Who never wrote a misspelled word 
Nor ever said a wise one. 

It makes a difference whether the word is spelled correctly, 
but it makes more difference what the word is and what it 
means. Suppose I am on the point of purchasing Judge Hilton's 
park at Saratoga. By a reversal of conditions I have become 
wealthy and he — an editor. The place seems to suit me: he 
wants to sell and I want to buy. I drive out there and as I pass 
through the gate I see a cobble-stone lying in the middle of the 
roadway. "That's enough for me," I say: "turn around and 
drive back to the hotel. I don't want any country-place so 
poorly taken care of that roadways are sprinkled with cobble- 
stones." 

Ridiculous, isn't it.? Well isn't it just as ridiculous to reject 
a man finally and solely because he spells separate with three 
(?'s? The road ought not to have cobble-stones in it, but won't 
it be better to drive around the rest of the place and see whether 
the cobble-stone is typical or exceptional ? The teacher ought 
not to misspell separate, but won't it look better to look farther 
and see whether this blunder is characteristic, or whether it is 
an exception that proves the rule.? 

A few weeks ago I recommended to one of the best superin- 



12 

tendents I know, a lady whom I pronounced exceptionally fitted 
to fill a responsible position. He liked what I said of her and 
what she said of herself in a letter of application ; but in an ac- 
companying page giving an outline of her experience, she had 
written : 

"Born , June 21, 1866. 

Graduated from , 1883. 

Taught , 1883-1886," etc. 

He showed me this sheet and said it astonished him to find a 
teacher generally well-educated who would end these state- 
ments with periods. They were parts of one sentence, and 
should have been separated by semicolons. In fact this seemed 
to him so unpardonable a blunder that though in his search for 
a teacher he passed through the village where she was employed, 
he would not stop to see her. Think of it! One of the noblest 
women that man ever left unmarried, with a record of unbroken 
and progressive success as a teacher, and he wouldn't stop to 
see her because it was her judgment to use periods where it was 
his to use semicolons ! 

I remember years ago a story the principal told us of a class- 
mate since risen to eminence; a teacher who in his early days 
was on the point of engagement where he lost the place in this 
way. The trustees had met to engage him, and were waiting 
for a ninth member to come that the vote might be unanimous. 
The clerk happened to remember that he had received a letter 
asking some trifling question of detail as to the household ar- 
rangements, explaining in a bashful way that this interested 
him as he was about '•'• se fwbere.''' That finished him. The 
chairman smiled a superior smile as he remarked that a man 
who didn't know enough of Latin customs and the Latin lan- 
guage to be aware that it was the bride who veiled herself and 
not the bridegroom, would not be needed as principal of 



13 

Academy. The superior smile spread, and a nincompoop who 
had sense enough to write in English was selected instead. 

Now it was a bad blunder for this man to say he was about 
se mibere ; it was a worse one to use a Latin expression, even 
bashfully, where Anglo-Saxon would have expressed the mean- 
ing better. But was this little slip sufficient reason for reject- 
ing a man whose general scholarship and teaching skill and 
executive ability were attested by ten years of marked success 
in like work 1 I am glad to say in this case the rejected candi- 
date was employed by a less finical board of trustees in a neigh- 
boring academy, hitherto a feeble rival, but since then of such 
rapid growth that it has long overshadowed the other. 

These men would not have rejected a 2.20 horse because one 
of his ears had been clipped a trifle, or a Holstein cow of big 
milking-record because her white belt was a little wider on the 
near side. But this pedantic chairman chuckled so conceitedly 
over this one little blunder he had chanced to detect, that he 
forgot all the evidence of exceptional ability, and in rejecting 
this man permitted his academy so eifectually to veil itself that 
it has been wedded to obscurity ever since. 

When Robert Bonner wanted a mate for Dexter, he offered a 
hundred thousand dollars for any horse that could equal Dexter's 
record. He cared nothing for details. The horse might have 
four white feet and a white nose (^as indeed Dexter had \), a 
docked tail, knock-knees, the blind-staggers if you will — still 
the money was ready. All he asked for was a horse that could 
trot in 2.18. 

School committees might well partake something of this spirit. 
See everything if you will : length of the hair, color of the neck- 
tie, quality of the cuffs, — I agree with you, it all counts. I 
respect the judgment of the Irishman who declined to vote for 
a candidate with a No. 6 hat and No. 12 shoes, if that was all 



14 

the Irishman knew about him. But remember that sometimes 
a man's a man for a' that, and that when he has a record behind 
him there are other things to consider than whether he patron- 
izes your tailor and attends your church. 

O my friends, why not say, " Give me the most of a Man you 
can for the money." If he can turn your boys and girls into 
honest, earnest, scholarly, self-respecting, high-minded men and 
women, be he tall or short, young or old, graduate or no gradu- 
ate. Baptist or Unitarian, Tammany Democrat or Prohibitionist, 
he is the man you want. 

Here is the difficulty in applying to the selection of teachers, 
the rules of the Civil Service. Those who heard the persuasive 
voice of George William Curtis at Philadelphia, last winter, 
might well have been allured for the moment into believing 
that it was the great need of our schools to be brought under the 
operation of the Civil Service. But reflection shows that char- 
acter, personality, individual influence can never be determined 
by question papers. It is legitimate to establish a minimum 
standard of qualification, as by our uniform examinations; but 
when you go farther and say this man must be taken because he 
passed 97 per cent, and that man must be rejected because he 
passed 96!^ per cent, you go too far. As Superintendent Draper 
puts it, " The State has every right to say who shall not teach, 
but she has no right to say who shall teach." 

Hence it is perhaps not altogether to be regretted that an ap- 
plication of Chancellor Curtis's principle should have occurred 
so soon and in his own university. The New York commisson 
held that the two inspectors of academies, — officers in whom 
the requirement of scholarship was as nothing compared with 
those of experience, judgment, the respect and confidence of the 
academy principals, — should be appointed by competitive exam- 
ination. You might as well pick out a wife by competitive 



15 

examination. The action of the commission in this matter has 
put back civil service reform ten years, if indeed among think- 
ing men it has not dealt it an irreparable blow. 

^' I say, Mac," asked a customer of an Ann street bookseller, 
"what is this edition de luxy I see publishers advertising of so 
many books ? " 

" An edition deluxe ? " replied the bookseller cheerfully ; " why, 
you've seen a rabbit ? " 

"Yes." 

"And you've seen a jackass ? " 

"Yes." 

" Well, a jackass is an edition de luxe of- a rabbit." 

If the New York Civil Service Commission were to be judged 
by its action upon academy inspectors, it might well be called 
an edition de luxe — in continuous proportion. 

All these small measures that you apply to ordinary men fail 
when you come to such a teacher as I am considering. 

Take tact for instance. The youngest committeeman knows 
that tact is indispensable, and he does not draw a very defi- 
nite distinction between tact and policy. The teacher rriust 
know how to get along smoothly. Boards of education like a 
teacher of whom they hear nothing. A principal like a stomach 
is perfect only when you are unconscious of him. He reports 
at the annual meeting that the teachers are excellent, the text- 
books are giving entire satisfaction, there is no need of any 
apparatus, and the commissioner told him this was the best 
school in the county. So he is re-elected year after year, and if 
you ask any one in the village whether there is a school there, 
the reply will be, " Why, I suppose so ; the bell rings every 
morning." To some people it is with the school as with the 
Indian — the only good school is a dead school. 

You know this type of teacher: there are a great many of 



i6 

him. He is the man who is continually making his calling 
sure by making sure of his election — his next one. He is sat- 
isfied to have, like a geometrical point, position without mag- 
nitude. 

Now what is tact, but yielding to the whims of others ? The 
average teacher must have it^ because without it he cannot get 
along at all. But the masterful teacher does not steer himself 
sinuously about the edges of other people's whims so as not to 
graze them : he teaches other people to keep their whims out of 
his way. The man of tact adapts himself to circumstances; the 
masterful man controls them. It is better to yield than to quar- 
rel, but it is better yet to control. 

It is a great blessing to come under the influence of a master- 
ful man. This age loses something of the mental fibre that 
characterizes pioneers, because it is less accustomed to grapple 
with difficulties. It has been calculated to the fraction of a per 
cent, what the average boy can do. His life gets set in a groove, 
and he anticipates only disaster if he should jump the rails and 
strike out into the fields. 

But the masterful teacher shows him that the possibilities have 
not yet been surmised, and leads him to substitute for the confi- 
dent " It can't be done," the hopeful " Let's give it a try." This 
is no age to sit by the side of the brook and wait for the water 
to run by. " Young men," Martin Anderson used to say, " make 
things come to pass." The power of the human will has too little 
recognition in education. It does remove mountains; moun- 
tains vanish before it. 

Can you not sacrifice something in non-essentials to secure a 
man like this ? The ideal is of course the iron hand in the vel- 
vet glove; but suppose you can't have both, which will you dis- 
pense with, the hand or the glove .? The glove is smoother ; but 
in this modern current of indolence, indifference, and conscious 



^7 

helplessness it takes a strong grip on the oar to turn your school 
up-stream and give your scholars a purpose to live for. 

The teacher's morality, for instance, must be of the stalwart 
type. It is not enough that he be inoffensive; he must be ag- 
gressively honest and pure. No didactic lessons have such 
effect upon watchful pupils as the instinctive gesture of con- 
tempt in a pure-minded teacher when there is any manifesta- 
tion of baseness; nor can they atone for the weakening of 
the pupil's moral fibre when the teacher makes light of dishon- 
esty in examination, or shows enjoyment of a libidinous jest. 
Says the latest biographer of Thomas Arnold : 

^' The great peculiarity and charm of his nature seemed to 
lie in the regal supremacy of the moral and the spiritual element 
over his whole being and powers. His intellectual faculties 
were not such as to surpass those of many who were his contem- 
poraries ; in scholarship he occupied a subordinate place to 
several who filled situations like his; and he had not much of 
what is usually called tact in his dealings with either the juvenile 
or the adult mind. What gave him his power, and secured for 
him so deeply the respect and veneration of his pupils and ac- 
quaintances, was the intensely religious character of his whole 
life." 

It is this positive element that is indispensable in the ideal 
teacher. We want more of the Robert Browning estimate of 
men, not by what they refrain from, but by what they do. It is 
the Bible judgment. The man with one talent whimpered that 
he didn't drink, he didn't smoke, he didn't swear, he didn't play 
billiards, he never sat down to the table with his coat off or ate 
with his knife; but the great Judge interrupted him : " What are 
the things you have done to make the world better.? " And the 
man who hadn't done anything was done for. 



i8 

I have said that Dr. Andrews's picture was of the teacher 
"before taking"; I might add that mine is of the teacher before 
being taken, and not altogether likely to be taken. 

A while ago a man was praising his preceptress to me inter- 
minably, and to get to a period I summed it up for him. " In 
short," I said, " she is a royal woman." 

" Royal ! " he exclaimed, starting on a fresh tack, " royal ! She's 
more than royal : she is empirical ! " 

He hadn't had the Regents' syllabus in etymology, but there 
are boards of education that, honest Indian, would rather have 
for principal a quack than a king. 

For what is a quack ? Why, a quack is a man who makes up 
for ignorance of his subject by knowledge of his victim. He 
can't cure a man, but he can flatter him. The educational quack 
knows little about pedagogy, but he knows a good deal about 
making every member of the board in turn believe that he is 
the member who is running the school. And that member 
likes it. 

For it is an unhappy fact that independence of thought and 
action is about the last thing a board of education looks for in a 
teacher. You know the cities of this State pretty well : tell me 
how many of them would employ a masterful man for superin- 
tendent — if they knew it. I doubt if the Republican caucus 
would have united on Judge Draper five years ago, if they had 
foreseen where he was going to land them. Educational officials 
want a man to carry out their ideas, not to originate ideas of 
his own. 

Suppose we tried that in other professions. I go to a physi- 
cian and say, " I want you to doctor my family, but you must 
come to me first to find out what is the matter with them and 
how to cure it. You can mix and administer the doses, but I 



19 

will prescribe them." He would be very likely to leave me to 
the tender mercies of Tutt's Pills. 

Or suppose, again, I go to a lawyer and say: " I have a com- 
plicated case here that I want taken care of, but you must do it 
in my way. I will explain what the law is and how to apply it, 
but you can make out the papers and address the jury." He 
would be apt to remind me that the man who was his own 
lawyer had a fool for a client. 

Or again, suppose I say to a clergyman, " We have decided to 
hire you as pastor, but you will understand that you must fol- 
low our dictation. We have here an elaborate printed course, 
giving you the subject of each sermon and prayer throughout 
the year, and the length of them, and should like to have the 
manuscripts submitted to us for revision on the Saturday before." 
He won't tell us he would see us in Gehenna first, but he will 
think our chances are good to get there. 

Edward Thring wrote to a friend who asked advice : 

" My view is simple. The skilled workman ought to be 
allowed uncontrolled management of the work. Governors 
ought to sanction his plan of work originally, and see that the 
work up to a fair average is honestly done. But no work can 
flourish over a series of years which is exposed to interference 
from local amateurs in authority." 

When the teacher is as he should be, that view of his office 
will be recognized and maintained. 



-TEE SCHOOL BULLETIN PUBLICATIONS.- 



Descriptions of School Systems. 

1. Prussian Schools through American Eyes. By James Kussell Par- 
sons, Jr. Cloth, 8vo, pp. 110. $1.00. 

The teacher who wishes tu know exactly what the much-praised Prus- 
sian elementary schools do, and on what their excelleuce depends, will fiud 
it set forth here compactly and clearly. The New York reader will have tlie 
additional benefit of frequent comparisons between Prussian educational 
details and those of his own counivy .—Educational Peview, June, 1891. 

In short (his small volume is the most complete and satisfactory account 
of Prussian elementary education now accessible to American teachers, 
and ought to be carefully studied.— IFis. Jour, of Edu., June, 1891. 

It is scant praise to say that it is the best account ever written of what 
Prussian schools are and what they are doing, and it is certain to be the au- 
thority for many years to coxae.— Educational Couranl, May, 1891. 

The Report deals only with elementary education, and is of special 
worth because of the particularity with which he describes the system in 
use. The rigid and uniform practice in Prussia makes this possible, since 
the observer \ % not bothered by too much freedom of exercise on the part 
of the teacher. Seeing one school he sees &\\.— Atlantic Monthly, Aug. 1891, 

2. The Free School Sijstem of the United States. By Francis Adams. 
8vo, pp. 301. $3,7.5. 

We bought the entire remainder of the edition of this book, recognized 
as the most complete and thoughtful description ever written. Only a few 
copies remain. 

3. Roderick Ilvme ; the Story of a New York Teacher. By C. W. Bar- 
DEEN. Cloth, IGmo, pp. 295. $1.25. 

This describes graphically the schools of New York in 1874, including 
the management of union schools, academies, Eegents' examinations, em- 
ployment of teachers, election of boards of education, trickery of book 
agents, etc. While occasionally humorous, the story is after all a straight- 
forward depiction of things just as they were in New York in 1874. The 
Nation, eomparing it with Locke Ani^den, says, "The book is vivacious, and 
the author knows the ground he describes." The veteran A. J. Rickoff says, 
■■ I can (.'ertify that It is true to life." Erziehungs Blatter' speaks of it thus ; 
'■ It describes in quite a masterly way a few traits of the school system of 
the State of New York. Some scenes are drawn with wonderful truth from 
actual life, a-s e. g. the one in which a change of text-books is proposed. 
The author is certainly a shrewd psychoiogiist." 

4. A Day in wy Life ; or Every day Experiences at Eton. Clotli 16mo, 
pp 184. Price $1.00. 

A capital description of ju.st how boys really live in the great "public 
schools " of England. 

C. W. BARDEEN, Publislier, Syracuse, N. T. 



THE SCHOOL BULLETljs x UBLICATIONS.- 




The OrWs Pictus of Comenius. 

This beautiful volume, (Cloth, 
8vo, large paper, top-edge gilt, 
others uncut, pp. 197, $3.00) is a 
reprint of the English edition of 
1727, but with reproduction of the 
151 copper-cut illustrations of the 
original edition of 1658. A copy 
of the rare original commands 
a hundred dollars, and this re- 
print must be considered the 
most important contribution to 
pedagogical literature yet made. 
It was not only the first book 
of object lessons, but the first 
text-book in general use, and in- 
deed, as the Encyclopcedia Bri- 
tannica states, "the first chil- 
dren's picture-book." 

EXTRACTS FROM CRITICISMS. 

The book is a beautiful piece of work, and in every way superior to 
most of the f ac similes we have so far been presented with.— iV. Y. World, 

C. W. Bardeen, of Syracuse, has placed lovers of quaint old books un- 
der obligation to him.— iV. Y. Sun. 

We welcome this resurrection of the Orbis Pictus Sensualum Pictus, 
which has lain too long in suspended amination. This master-piece of Com- 
enius, the prince of European educators in the 17th century, was the 
greatest boon ever conferred on the little ones in primary schools.— iVaiiora. 

Comenius's latest edioor and publisher has therefore given us both a 
curiosity and a wholesome bit of ancient instruction in his handsome re- 
print of this pioneer -^Civ\.— Critic. 

The old wood illustrations are reproduced with absolute fidelity by a 
photographic process, and as the text follows closely letter by letter the old 
text, the book is substantially a copy of the rare oxx^vaaX.— Literary World. 

It would be impossible to find an educational work which would exer- 
cise a stronger fascination upon the minds of the young.— ^w. Book-maker. 

The reproduction gives an excellent idea of the work and makes a most 
interesting volume for reference, especially as an illustration of the customs, 
manners, beliefs, and arts of the 17th century.— Indejiendent. 

Every educational library 7nust have a copy of the book, if it wishes to 
lay any claim whatever to completeness, and as the edition is limited, orders 
should be sent early. We say right here that twenty-five dollars will not 
take our copy unless we are sure we can replace it. —Educational Courant. 

*C. ^^r. BARDEEt^ '^-I'Usher, Syracuse, N, Y.^ 






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